ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an ethnographic account of the construction of religiosity and myth among subalterns through a story of the followers of a sect in north Bihar, known as Dharnidasis, on the name of their Guru, Dharnidas, a saint poet of the 16th and 17th centuries. Baba Dharanidas was a famous Bhakti saint-poet, a leading star of the Bhakti movement in Bihar, especially the sant parampara (saint tradition) of the later mediaeval period in north India. There are two collections of vanis of Dharanidas, sung and recited in Bhojpuri and Hindi languages. The former is named Prem Prakash and the latter is called Shabd Prakash. There is a combination of dialects, languages and ragas in Dharanidas’ verses. In addition to the textual representation of Dharanidas’ Vanis, his version is also very popular in the Bhojpuri folk memory. The uses of syntax, imagery and metaphors were all deeply rooted in the folk tradition of the place of the sage-poets. Often, people composed their own songs (content) in the established metre (form) that was popular and prevalent in that era. Thus, the songs of Dharanidas (and others) resemble the style and metre of other sage-poets. He also used the metres of the songs of everyday lives (occasions, events, festivities) particularly associated with women and Dalits. Sage-poets like Dharanidas belong to that tradition, the renaissance of literature, when dissent was germinating: preparing the marginalised and Dalits for liberation that was to come!
